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t 




AN 


ADDRESS 


DELIVERED BEFORE THE 


ERIE COUNTY 


COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION SOCIETY, 


AT BUFFALO, N. Y., 


February 3, 1840. 







BUFFALO : 

PRINTED AT STEELE’S PRESS 


1840 


Extract from the Minutes of the Erie County Common School 
Education Society. 

Resolved, “ That a Committee be appointed to wait on the 
Rev. George W. Hosmer, and solicit a copy of the Address 
delivered by him, before said Society, on the 3d instant, for 
publication.” 

Dear Sir : 

The Committee, appointed agreeably to the above resolution, 
believing that much good will be done by the publication of the 
Address referred to, earnestly request you to comply with the 
wish expressed in that resolution. 

With feelings of highest 

personal regard, 

Yours, 

S. CALDWELL, 

O. G. STEELE, 

D. GALUSHA, 

Committee . 


Messrs. S. Caldwell, O. G. Steele, and D. Galusha : 

Gentlemen : — The Address, delivered on the 3d inst., before 
the Society which you represent, is respectfully submitted to 
your wishes. 

With earnest hope for your success and 
Usefulness in the cause of education, 

I am your friend, 

GEORGE W. HOSMER. 


ADDRESS. 


Gentlemen of this Society, and Fellow Citizens : 

We are assembled to promote Common School 
Education; to wake up our own minds, and if possible, 
to rouse the attention of the public to its importance. 
The object is worthy of all that we can do. It is a 
noble object; and it is pleasant to see so many drawn 
together by motives so honorable to them. It is an 
omen of promise, that you have broken away from 
ordinary engagements, and come to consult together 
for what is not immediately connected with the 
materia] results of life. We are here not to devise 
means of affluence, not to build up the partition 
walls of a sect, not to be drilled in the tactics of 
political partisanship ; we have come for the good of 
our children, and of the rising generation; for the 
prosperity of our country and the elevation of 
humanity. 

Yes, for humanity have you come. The friend 
of Common Schools, is the benefactor of his race ; 
he occupies a high and commanding position ; every 
thing that he does, tells upon unborn generations. 
Philanthropy has many fields into which she sends 
her laborers, but in none is the harvest more sure 
than in that of the Common Schools. A transforming 
power resides in these humble institutions. By these, 


4 


the rude masses of mental ore are refined, wrought 
into form, and prepared for circulation. By these, 
the lime stone is cut out from the quarry, the hidden 
beauties of its marble veins are disclosed, and it is 
placed in the front of architectural grandeur 5 or, — to 
seek a closer analogy in things of life, by our Common 
Schools, the tender vine of immortal growth is lifted 
from the ground, and trained up so that it may enrobe 
itself, and every thing to which it clings, with leaves 
and flowers, and bear on its branches clusters of 
grateful fruit. 

By legislation, the environment of a man only is 
affected, but education affects the man himself. Laws 
and civil institutions clothe the body of society, and 
protect it from harm, and open ways for its free 
passage; but education changes the character of that 
body’s soul, and prepares it for the reception of 
liberty and law. The school then stands paramount 
to the halls of legislation 5 the district school-house 
has a vast significance ; it is a main prop to the 
republic, and even our holy religion, finds but a 
scanty admission to minds which have not been 
opened and disciplined by education. The school- 
master must go before the missionary, or, at least 
they must go together, in order that the heathen 
kingdoms of the earth may become the kingdoms of 
our Lord. And here at home, the school-house and 
the church must stand side by side, or the friends of 
our Zion will be left to mourn over her desolation. 

The New England fathers, and I love to hold them 
in remembrance, understood these things 5 as soon as 
they had made a shelter for themselves, they provided 
means to educate their children. The infant spirit of 


5 


our nation’s freedom was nursed in those rude school- 
houses, which our fathers reared; and therefore it was 
that Berkeley, the Colonial Governor of Virginia, 
writing to his Royal Master, just upon the eve of our 
revolution, could find it in his heart to declare, “ I 
thank God, we have no free schools in this Province, 
for they are the nurseries of heresy and insubordi- 
nation.” 

It is said of John Milton, that, when the dark days 
of calamity came upon Old England in the reign of 
the first Charles, he was travelling on the Continent. 
He was a faithful son, and when he knew that his 
father-land had need of him, he hasted home, and 
what should he do think you; harangue the disaffected 
multitudes that thronged the streets, and hung around 
the parliament-house? No, this would have been 
but stirring the froth of troubled waters: Milton 
took deep views, he opened a school, in which, to- 
gether with his masterly writings, he labored to 
prepare minds for the coming struggles for right and 
liberty. 

What lias been done by popular education, may 
help us to catch a glimpse of what may be done — 
what must he done , if we would not have the experiment 
of free institutions fail in our hands. The Common 
School, is a lever by which the world can be 
moved; all it wants is a sure prop — a faithful sup- 
port from the body of the people. And is it not 
strange that people are not more awake upon this 
subject, and especially in these young communities, 
that are daily rising into strength, and taking their 
enduring form and character? Each man, says a 
writer, whose words are not wide and deep enough to 


6 


hold his thoughts — “ Each man builds his house, and 
beyond that creates his world, and above and beyond 
all, makes the heaven or hell of his future being.” 
And fellow citizens, we, the early settlers of these 
fertile and beautiful regions, are making a world. — 
Our children, and those of our neighbors, are the 
materials from which it is to be made ; and what kind 
of a world are we making ? what would we have it ? 
Shall it be darkened by ignorance, shall it be distracted 
by demagogues and dogmatical sectaries, shall it 
worship mammon, shall it be polluted with crime, and 
become the dwelling-place of disorder and misery? 
or — all opposite to this; would you have it distinguish- 
ed by knowledge and quickening intelligence, and by 
sound and generous views of truth and duty ? What 
would we have our county and our city, fifty years 
from now ? I know how frail we are, and would live 
and speak in meekness and humility ; but how can a 
conscientious man but tremble with mingled fear and 
joy, when he thinks liow much we may do for the 
weal or wo of the generations that will come after us? 

Think of these elements, the children of present 
society, out of which we are to form the society of 
the next age. What mines of unwrought intellect, 
what magazines of sleeping energies, what capacities 
for high purpose and sterling worth, what germs of 
promise ! It was upon children such as these that are 
around us to-day, that Jesus pronounced the memo- 
rable words “ Of such is the kingdom of Heaven.” 
Oh, it is fearful to think how the youthful spirit may 
be perverted. May God forbid that the light of hope 
and promise in our children, should become the dark- 
ness of despair! 


7 


Our homes and our schools are the nurseries in 
which these hopeful germs of humanity are to be 
cherished into life, and bent upward to their destinies. 
I would not compare home and the school, as places 
for the exertion of influence upon a child’s mind. — 
Home should be the birth-place of the best qualities 
which enter into the forming character 5 but since the 
homes of society, such as they be, some good and 
some bad, are in a great measure beyond the reach 
of our influence ; our hopes must lean the more upon 
our Common Schools — into these we must gather all 
the little ones, who are to be the men and women, -the 
fathers and mothers of future society, and make truth 
and virtue as common, and as free to them, as the air 
they breathe. The common school — and I think it 
should be free to all — is the grand instrument to 
elevate the mass of society. It is the people’s col- 
lege ; its doors should be open to every child, and 
care should be taken that every one goes through and 
obtains his degree 5 not perhaps of bachelor, or mas- 
ter of arts, but his qualification for citizenship. 

There is no country upon earth, that so much needs 
the common free school as ours, and especially this 
portion of it. Ignorance is always dangerous to a 
people, just in proportion to their liberty and oppor- 
tunities. One of the perils that besets us, comes out 
of a grasping spirit of accumulation. The vast re- 
gions of fertile country which have been opened 
around us, and the trade and commerce that have 
arisen in consequence, have inflamed our acquisitive 
desires. Men have turned from the consideration of 
their higher destinies j they have sunk down into the 
coarse interests of money-getters, and bond and 


8 


mortgage-holders. Shall avarice be the grave of our 
nation’s virtue and glory ? God forbid. Keep open 
then, the common free schools, and in them let our 
children acquire a taste for knowledge, let their 
intelligence and moral sense be awakened, let them 
learn by precept and experience, that a well informed 
mind and a conscience void of offence towards God 
and man, are the best treasures in the universe. 

Jlnother peril that besets us, comes out of the 
abuse of our free institutions. The paths to the 
honors and emoluments of office, are wide open. It 
is the glory of our country, that the child who was 
born and nursed in the humblest dwelling, the poor 
man’s boy, may rise to the highest official station, 
and stand among the honorable in the land. But 
such opportunity inflames lawless desire ; crowds of 
demagogues, bearing any party name, that will best 
serve their purpose, throng every avenue of public 
life. Would we have these children in our homes 
and in the streets, the dupes of such men, and the 
successors to their meanness and disgrace? No! 
Keep open then the common free schools, in which 
they may acquire intelligence and virtue enough to 
perceive and abhor the fawning, hypocritical arts of 
corrupt ambition. 

Another peril that besets us, comes with our 
religious liberty. Thanks be to God, we were “free 
born ,” — “ freedom to worship God,” was the boon for 
which our fathers made their homes in the wilder- 
ness, and they have given it unto us. Would that 
it never had been violated ! But no sk}^ is without 
clouds 5 perils come with religious liberty ; sects 
arise; the body of Christ is rent asunder; the 


9 


unalloyed beam of heavenly truth is broken and 
scattered 5 and who shall be allowed to dictate to the 
coming generations, what they must believe, and to 
what sect they must belong? No man openly dare do 
this ; no truth-loving man would desire to do it, for 
we all are fallible. Keep open then your Common 
Free Schools, not to indoctrinate children in contro- 
verted theology, by no means, but to awaken their 
intelligence and moral sense, so that they may be 
capable, each for himself, of determining what is 
religious truth, and of applying it to their spiritual 
wants. Make the people intelligent, quicken their 
moral natures, let them be free, and they will find 
the truth. They may wander long in error, whole 
generations may grope in its darkness, but let man 
be thoroughly educated and he will find the light of 
truth at last, as surely as a bee will find the honey of 
the flowers, or, the bird in autumn, the warmer clime. 
Man and truth were made for each other — true edu- 
cation reconciles them. 

But I must restrain further expression upon these 
topics; perhaps some are already inquiring why so 
much discussion about the importance of popular 
education and common schools? I know the subject 
is hackneyed, but it is not every hackneyed subject, 
that is duly appreciated by the mass of society. — 
Our common schools have been much talked of — 
in some fashion they have been maintained — indi- 
viduals have discovered their importance 5 but how 
few, comparatively, have a just conception of what 
these institutions may do for society ! Thousands 
among us have not dreamed of the effects of popular 
education; they have complained of its expensiveness, 
2 


10 


not forseeing that it will diminish vagrancy and 
pauperism and crime ; that it will be an antidote to 
mobs, and prevent the necessity of a standing army 
to keep our own people in order ; every people may 
make their choice “ To pay teachers, or recruiting 
sergeants,” to support schools, or constables and 
watchmen. 

But this is the lowest view of popular education; 
and while, in a single paragraph, I would show how 
it may keep the rising generation from the poor' 
house and the State’s prison, I would, if there were 
opportunity, spend whole days to show how it may 
prepare our children to be useful citizens, and good 
men. The fear of evil, should make us prize our 
common schools, but the hope of good, should make 
us prize them much more. It is well, undoubtedly, 
to consider the darkness from which they may keep 
society ; but still better is it, to look to the glorious 
light into which they may help to guide the coming 
generations— the light of true liberty, general intelli- 
gence, and public and private virtue. Hope is better 
than fear; and in our minds, we should not associate 
the school-house with ignorance and penitentiaries, 
but with whatever is patriotic and humane — with the 
halls of legislation and justice, and with the churches 
of Christ. 

I repeat, the effects of popular education are not 
appreciated. Indeed, there are many parents who do 
not consider the value of education to their own 
children. They would have them dress fashionably, 
and go into the genteel society, and they are ready 
to do almost any thing to become rich and leave 
wealth to their families ; but a good education they 


11 


do not hold to be a requisite of life. How short 
sighted, to clothe the body fashionably, and let the 
mind go naked ! to be absorbed by an ambition to be 
in genteel society, and suffer vulgar ignorance to 
brood over the soul ! to scheme and delve to make 
one’s family rich, when the members of it, for want 
of education, are utterly incompetent to use and enjoy 
affluence ! What is the use to build fine houses and 
fill them with elegance, and leave them to be occupied 
by ignorant and vulgar children? “ Cast not pearls 
before swine.” 

When shall we give heed to the incontrovertible 
fact, that, in general, a large amount of wealth cor- 
rupts a family ? the second or third generation from 
those who acquire fortunes, almost invariably sink 
into pitiable imbecility or abandoned vice. Some 
attention to the history of affluent families in different 
parts of our country, leads me the more confidently 
to make this assertion; but education strengthens and 
elevates those who are blest by it. Let us cease to 
be anxious to lay up money for our children and turn 
our interest to their education. All requisite means 
should be liberally provided, — good school-houses 
decently furnished and eligibly situated, such as we 
ourselves should be willing to spend our time in, — 
suitable books, and above all, competent teachers. 
It is in vain to build school-houses, and buy books, 
and be at the trouble of sending children to school, 
unless we provide teachers who are competent to 
their instruction— as are the teachers, such will be 
the schools, and such will be the scholars. Unworthy 
ideas have been very generally entertained concerning 
the instruction of youth. It is not many years since 


12 


it was taken for granted that any superannuated old 
woman would do very well to teach the little ones ; 
and any sort of men and women, who had in them 
the breath of life, and a smattering of elementary 
knowledge, were allowed to sit upon the instructed s 
throne. How strange that men did not perceive the 
danger, in suffering rude and unskilful hands to strike 
those spirit-strings that are to vibrate through eter- 
nity ! 

Better suffer incompetent persons any where else 
than in the school-house; send them into the practise 
of medicine, send them to the bar, or send them into 
the pulpit ; for in all these professions they will deal 
with mature persons, who can judge, and accept or 
reject; but send them not into the school-house, 
where unreflecting children will imbibe their faults 
and imbecility. An incompetent teacher, standing 
between the fountains of knowledge and infant minds, 
has been compared to a non-conducting substance 
inserted into the chain of an electrical machine; but 
the figure is not strong enough ; he is Avorse than 
that, for he not only prevents the passage of what 
is good for the child, but often inflicts a positive 
injury by transmitting his own faults. 

To be a successful teacher, a person must be pos- 
sessed of a good share of information, and accurate 
knowledge of the fundamental principles of science; 
he must know how to govern himself before he can 
govern others ; and he must be acquainted with the 
operation and laws of the mind and affections. This 
last requisite must not be overlooked. Who would 
trust a valuable watch that needed regulation in the 
hands of one who had not learned the construction 


13 


and action of watches? and is the immortal spirit 
of your child of less importance than your watch? 

In years past, the whole subject of instruction has 
received increasing attention from the thinking men 
of every civilized country ; and it is interesting to 
look back thirty years and note the changes that 
have been made in the modes of education. The 
whole process has been re-modelled ; the most of 
its branches have been completely reversed — analysis 
has taken the place of synthesis. Twenty-five years 
ago the child was made to begin with generals and 
end with particulars. The first question in Geogra- 
phy was “ How far is the equator from each pole?” 
now he begins by bounding his father’s garden, and 
ends where he once began. In Arithmetic the child 
now begins by counting his own fingers ; so he goes 
on, till, from examples, he deduces the rule; — he used 
to begin — if I remember rightly — with a hard lesson 
about enumeration, and then came the abstract rules 
of addition to be committed to memory before the 
child had the least idea of their meaning; and so in 
Grammar,— who will ever forget those dull lessons 
about such hard words as syntax, etymology, pro- 
sody, and the conjugation of verbs? I am glad that 
our children have escaped that old dispensation un- 
der which the name must be learned and fixed in 
the mind, before the object was presented to the eye; 
and the rule fully drilled into the indifferent intellect 
before a case was presented to be solved by it. — 
And there is room enough still for improvement in 
the modes of education, and teachers should be fa- 
miliar with the principles of science and the laws of 
mind, so that they may carry on the reform, and 
bring mind and truth into actual contact. 


14 


I have spoken chiefly in reference to the education 
of the intellect, but we must not forget that the child 
has a moral, as well as an intellectual nature. The 
soul is fearfully and wonderfully made, and its har- 
monies must be preserved. It is dangerous to quicken 
the intellect, and meantime neglect the moral nature; 
it is like furnishing a bad man with means to execute 
his purposes ; an educated intellect may become the 
scheming executor of base passions. Statistics have 
been made in France, to show that mere intellectual 
education, increases the amount of crime. The 
moral nature then must receive its due attention ; 
the principles of right and wrong must be defined 
and illustrated in our schools ; the conscientiousness 
and benevolence of the children must be excited to 
vigorous action. No mental acquisition is so impor- 
tant as a spirit of forbearance under injury and of 
sympathy with misfortune, as impartiality in our 
judgments of men, as love and fidelity to truth; and 
if we would have our children trained up in the way 
they should go, we must have teachers who are 
qualified to unfold the grand and beautiful truths of 
ethics and natural religion. We must have teachers 
who will themselves be a “ Living lesson to their 
pupils of decorous behavior, — of order, of magna- 
nimity, of justice, of affection, — who wili by their 
example transfuse and instil the sentiment of virtue.” 

I am unwilling to leave this point — it is so im- 
portant, that perhaps it would have been better to 
have made it the chief subject of my remarks. I 
cannot proceed to other topics, without referring you 
to one of the moral aspects of teaching. One of 
the most difficult of an instructor’s duties is to bring 
the powers of the child to the work of the school. 


15 


The difficulty lies in the selection of motives. Coarse 
minds will use coarse motives ; they will drive the 
child through fear of shame, or of pain from corpo- 
ral punishment, and in this way, accustom him to 
act from the lowest motive. Many a mind of noble 
promise is thus crushed down by parents and teachers. 
Another mode of stimulating children, is by appealing 
to the principle of emulation. I am not prepared to 
say that this is never to be done, — any more than I 
am prepared to say that the rod should never be used; 
but neither mode should be resorted to, until all 
nobler motives have failed. 

To show you what emulation may do, — that you 
may see with what a dangerous instrument you ope- 
rate when you appeal to it, I will give you a short 
narrative which comes from one of the most expe- 
rienced and approved teachers in New-England. “ 1 
was first awakened,” he says, “ to the evils of emula- 
tion, by being obliged to bestow five medals in a class 
of seventy-five, after a year’s exertion in their studies. 
I anticipated how difficult it would be to do it ; I felt 
that I should not be able to estimate the exertions 
that would be made ; I could at best only judge by 
the effect,— a rough and unjust mode of judging al- 
ways. I soon saw the influence of the announcement 
of these prizes upon the competitors. I saw the free, 
manly, generous bearing of the boys towards each 
other, which had subsisted while they were under the 
influence of kindly motives, giving place to jealousy 
and suspicion, to an inordinate desire to elevate them- 
selves and to depreciate their fellows. 

There were two amongst the number so far in 
advance of the rest, by their natural endowments and 


16 


by discipline, that they partook of these feelings in a 
less degree, -but even they showed them towards each 
other. I could not but watch the effect upon one of 
the number, a boy of fine natural gifts and of a gene- 
rous, susceptible nature, but who had always been 
unfavorably placed, and was poorly furnished for the 
struggle. Week after week I saw the resolute exer- 
tions he made, without suspecting how terribly severe 
they were. More than once I was so much surprised 
at his performances that I unintentionally suspected 
him of having received assistance, and even visited his 
father’s house to see if I could ascertain from whom. 
But I found all there so inferior to him in every res- 
pect, that I saw at once that he could have got no aid 
at home. Week after week I saw him growing pale 
and thin, and perceived his quiet and gentle temper, 
under the influence of this nervous excitement, be- 
coming disturbed, impatient and fretful. His exertions 
were crowned with success ; he was the third, if I 
remember rightly, of the fortunate five ! But nothing, 
not even his hard-bought, glorious success, could 
bring back the color to his cheek or the bounding 
spirit of boyhood to his heart. In a few months we 
followed him to his grave ! 

There was nothing remarkable in the case of the 
fourth. His was one of those rough natures that seem 
to be little affected by any thing about them. 

The fifth was the younger of two brothers, who had 
been placed in the same class. The younger was far 
superior in ability, but of a perfectly kind and gene- 
rous character. He made no considerable exertion : 
he seemed unwilling to outstrip his brother ; he could 
hardly help it, the slightest effort carried him through 


17 


what his brother labored at in vain. There was no 
exultation when he gained the prize; he seemed rather 
to be possessed by a melancholy sympathy for his 
disappointed brother. But the countenance of that 
elder brother fell. His feeling was forever changed 
towards that noble little fellow who almost in spite of 
himself had been declared victor, and towards me who 
had been most unwillingly the umpire. I often meet 
him, but never from that day, and it is almost twenty 
years ago, have I received a cordial greeting. The 
injustice of that day has been a blight upon his best 
feeling— for it was signal injustice— he had made 
every possible exertion and had failed ; while his 
brother had made none and had been successful.” 
“ Emulation,” continues he, “ as it usually operates, 
excites the worst passions in the human heart.” Oh 
the teacher’s hand is laid upon a delicate instrument, 
and how much skill and discretion is requisite to 
bring forth sweet harmony from its mysterious 
compass of powers ! Teachers should be spirit-seeing, 
truth-loving and affectionate, or they will wake up in 
infant-souls the discord of hell! 

And in order to obtain such ones, we must be 
willing to give them an ample remuneration for their 
services. In this country, in which there are so many 
paths open to honor and usefulness, it is in vain to 
expect the services of faithful and competent teachers, 
so long as their average compensation is but little 
more than we pay to the common day-laborer, who 
tends masons or mends the highway. Even in our 
cities, the salaries of teachers are but little if any 
larger than those which are paid to many intelligent 
merchant-clerks, who are still in their teens. A cheap 
3 


18 


school-master is the last thing that we should desire^ 
We may save our money,— but we shall lose our 
children. I would not give high wages to poor 
teachers, and this need not be done; let it be known 
that a district, or town, or city, is ready to pay for 
talent and fidelity, in some fair proportion to the 
reward which is bestowed upon these qualities in 
other occupations, and the able, faithful men will 
appear. Let it be known that our community, gen- 
erally, are ready to pay a fair equivalent for the 
time and expense of preparation, and for the labor 
of teaching, and young men and women will not 
fail to be qualified. The schools for teachers al- 
ready provided by the State in each Senatorial dis- 
trict, would be thronged, and in conformity with the 
recommendation of the late Superintendent of Com- 
mon Schools, these seminaries for teachers would be 
enlarged, and others established ; and the standard 
of qualification would be raised higher than it has 
ever been. We must encourage suitable persons to 
make teaching a profession; it ought to be such, 
and be ranked equal in honor with the other pro- 
fessions. We must respect and honor the teachers 
of our children, or else our children will not respect 
them. 

An interesting event occurred in New-England, 
in the summer of 1838. The venerable Dr. Abbott, 
had been the principal of a school in Exeter, New- 
Hampshire, for fifty years. At the close of his half 
century of faithful service, he was about to retire 
to the rest which the burden of years made neces- 
sary. He was not suffered to bid farewell to his 
school-room unnoticed and alone. They who had 


19 


been his pupils, and among them were many of the 
ornaments of New-England, with Webster and Ev- 
erett and Ware at their head, met at Exeter on the 
closing day of the half century; and it was one of 
the happiest occasions in New-England’s history. — 
Wit, and song, and oratory, and filial gratitude were 
there to gladden the heart of the good old man. It 
was merited praise. And when it becomes common 
in our country, as I hope it will, to furnish sufficient 
inducement to worthy men to keep school fifty years, 
and common too, to hold them in such honor, then 
we may be sure that a portion of the best talent 
and highest attainments will be devoted to the in- 
struction of youth. 

Our duty to the rising generation is not all done 
when we have built school-houses, and furnished 
books, and obtained teachers. The schools need 
our personal observation. It is not enough that the 
Trustees and Visitors perform their official duty; 
every parent should visit the schools ; and each in- 
dividual, who holds any considerable share in the 
governing influences of society, may do much good 
by letting it be seen that he is interested in edu- 
cation. By neglecting the schools, we leave the 
children to infer that we care very little for what 
is done in them, and the next step with the children 
will be, to care nothing for the schools, themselves. 
They will take their tone from us ; hence it is that 
some parents are obliged to drive their children to 
the school-house. 

And then, the teachers are to be considered ; if 
we leave them alone in utter neglect, how can we 
expect they will keep alivel It is not in humanity 


20 


to sustain lively interest for a long time when sur- 
rounded by cold neglect. The teacher’s heart will 
chill, though it were filled with fire, if he meets no 
sympathy, nor encouragement from the parents of 
his pupils. Go, then, to the schools, at least occa- 
sionally ; let no business nor pleasure prevent the 
discharge of this important duty. Go, and see for 
yourselves what the children are doing ; and if you 
believe the teachers are faithful, let them know that 
you appreciate their fidelity, and are grateful to them 
for their interest in your children. What on earth 
should sooner draw our benevolent affections toward 
an individual, than to be assured that he is earnestly 
laboring for the good of our children? Money should 
not be the only recompense for such labor of love. 
He that strives to benefit my child, shall have a 
place in my heart 1 

There are other topics, on which I would speak, 
were I not unwilling to occupy much more of the 
precious time of this meeting. The education of 
teachers should become still more, an object of pub- 
lic attention. There should be schools to prepare 
teachers, as there are preparatory schools for medi- 
cine, law and divinity. The district school libraries 
should be favorably regarded. They are reservoirs 
of knowledge to be placed in every neighborhood of 
the State. They will promote a taste for reading and 
furnish the material for thought and sentiment. 

One moment longer — fori cannot conclude without 
referring to certain facts that should inspire the 
friends of popular education with ardor and perseve- 
rance. Of the schools in this county, generally, I 
have but little definite knowledge; but by some reports 


21 


which have been made to this society, I am led to be- 
lieve that though in many respects impGrfect, they 
are yearly becoming better. 

Concerning the common schools of this city there 
are cheering things to be told. I have been fur- 
nished with the following statistics by the very effi- 
cient and successful Superintendent of our city 
schools. Since the modification of our system, which 
was made in 1838-9, by which our common schools 
became free to the whole community, a hopeful 
change has been witnessed. On the first of January, 
1838, under the old system, there were seven Com- 
mon Schools in the city ; and in those seven schools 
there were 179 scholars. The whole number of 
pupils in those schools during that year, was 679. 
On the first of January, 1839, the free system having 
been adopted, 451 pupils entered the city schools; 
more than twice as many as on the preceding first of 
January under the old system. On the first of Janu- 
ary, 1840, the 7 schools of 1838 had grown to be 15 
schools ; and the number of scholars in them, instead 
of 179, as in 1838, was 1252 ; and the whole number 
of pupils which have been in the city schools during 
the year past is about 2,450 — and I learn that many 
children have been turned away from the doors of the 
school-houses, because there is no room to receive 
them. It is believed that there are at this time, at 
least, one-third more children receiving education in 
this city, than there were two years ago, — including 
in the estimate all schools of every description. 

And now as to the cost of this increased amount 
of education. The expense of the free schools for 
the year past, exclusive of building school-houses, 


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which when built, are built for half a century, was 
$7,839 83. Please to notice this fact; in 1838, pains 
was taken to ascertain what was the expense to the 
city from private and public schools then in operation 
with about 1400 pupils in them ; and it appeared that 
our citizens were then paying $19,094. About the 
same number of pupils has been in the free schools 
each day of the past year, and their education has 
cost the city, not $19,000, — but $7,839 : considerably 
less than one-half. And to show that the education 
now to be obtained in the free schools, is not much, if 
any, inferior to that formerly given in the private 
schools, we may state the fact, that several of the 
most approved among our private teachers of 1838, 
are now in our free schools, and others have applied 
for places in them. 

Such is the auspicious commencement of free 
schools in Western New- York. It is true there have 
been expenses in the outfit, especially for building 
school-houses, which in these times have fallen heavily 
upon some districts ; but it is to be hoped that our 
citizens will cheerfully bear the present burden, in 
view of the immense advantages that will accrue to 
our children and coming generations. Free Schools 
are a noble monument to the patriotism and philan- 
thropy of those who establish and maintain them. Let 
them rise every where in the midst of our new homes, 
and stand to tell our children and the generations yet 
unborn, how earnestly we sought their welfare. 

But more than this, — I regard this subject in re- 
ligion’s light. Solemn responsibilities have been laid 
upon us. God has bound all his children together by 
the ties of humanity. His Son enjoined upon us the 


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command of active love. We must do what we can 
for the good of each other. The strong must help 
the weak*, -the wise the ignorant*, -the affluent the 
needy. It is the order of nature. It is the command 
of God. Oh! how can he appear before that judgment- 
seat where Omniscience presides, who has withheld 
his means or personal influence , and suffered the child 
of his poor neighbor to grow up in ignorance, and 
thus become prepared for sin and misery ! 


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